


becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy

by Calex



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-18
Updated: 2011-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 18:12:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calex/pseuds/Calex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Theoretically, Dustin knows that all good things must come to an end. There is no such thing as perfection. Yet, he'd hoped and that was his biggest mistake.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Harvard up until Chris leaves Facebook. Title from _Oh No!_ by Marina and the Diamonds.

Dustin is half asleep and hazy with it when he hears his door creak open and the lock click into place. The sound of clothes hitting the ground filters through the buzz of fatigue ringing in his ears before his bed dips under the weight of the body sliding into bed with him. Arms wrap around his waist, pulling him back into the broad expanse of bare chest he's intimately familiar with and he melts back with a soft sigh, dipping his head down as he feels chapped lips brush against the nape of his neck.

He's been drifting in and out of sleep since 1am, and he knows it's been at least an hour since then, and Chris smells faintly of alcohol and light sweat, slick against his skin. It's too hot to lie tangled together in bed, but Dustin doesn't know how to sleep any other way, now. He doesn't know how to want to, either. His bed feels empty and uncomfortable without Chris's weight making the springs creak as he moves. Dustin doesn't think he's slept more than a day without Chris curled around him, even though he's not supposed to have overnight guests and Chris's room is not far away.

"Get back to sleep," he murmurs, hand warm and sure and possessive against the Dustin's stomach under the thin, threadbare t-shirt he wears to sleep. The fan whirs quietly on his desk and he feels sweat beginning to slide down his spine but he settles back more firmly against Chris.

"Wasn't sleeping," he sighs, tangling their fingers together. "Waiting for you."

"I told you my study session was going to run late," Chris rebukes gently, breath already evening into sleep, heavy with it. Dustin shrugs, hand tightening momentarily on Chris's before he lets his eyes slip shut again.

"Can't sleep without you, now," he admits quietly, a yawn breaking the words. He feels Chris press a smile against his neck and lets the rhythm of their breaths lull him to sleep.

* * *

Dustin isn't sure how it happened. They've always been a unit of four: Mark, Wardo, Chris and him. But at the same time, they're a unit of four consisting of Mark and Wardo, him and Chris. Chris has been openly gay since the second semester of freshman year but the rest of them have talked about girls, punctuated by (in)frequent hook ups with pretty co-eds that line Harvard's campus. Yet somehow Dustin's walked in on Mark and Wardo making out more than once, and he and Chris sleep on the same bed and trade lazy kisses that they never talk about in the light of day. There is no natural progression, it feels like sudden happenstance. At parties Dustin flirts awkwardly with pretty girls who are out of his league, and Chris hooks up with guys who are better looking, more popular than Dustin is.

Dustin very carefully doesn't pay attention to the way this makes his stomach twist. Doesn't think about how it feels like Chris is cheating on him. Doesn't think of how lipgloss slicked lips around his cock feels like a betrayal to Chris.

* * *

Once, Chris slides into bed with Dustin smelling of expensive cologne not his and Dustin freezes and moves away. Chris stills for a moment before he turns so they're lying back to back on Dustin's cramped single bed. That night, Dustin falls into uneasy sleep aware the whole time of Chris's uneven breathing.

* * *

When Wardo and Mark recruit him and Chris to help out with The Facebook, Dustin is ecstatic. Suddenly, they're too busy to go out and hang out with other people. They live in a bubble consisting of the original unit of four, drunk on beer and exhilaration of what they're creating. Dustin catches Chris's eye across a table crowded with papers and research and computer paraphernalia and grins, bright and infectious, because _this_. This feels good and right and natural. Chris smiles back as he speaks rapidly on his phone, even as Dustin feels a foot nudging his.

Dustin ducks his head and hides his grin behind his laptop and nudges back.

* * *

Theoretically, Dustin knows that all good things must come to an end. There is no such thing as perfection. Yet, he'd hoped and that was his biggest mistake. It starts going downhill when Mark meets Sean and returns dazzled, not noticing the way Wardo's mouth turns down and his eyes are dark and unreadable. It gets worse when they go to California, and Wardo doesn't come with them.

* * *

After Wardo freezes their account, Dustin and Chris get drunk on tequila and beer, before stumbling into Dustin's room and falling in a haphazard tangle of limbs on Dustin's bed. It feels like college, and the end of an era all at once as their fingers clutch at each other and their kisses are desperate and sloppy. They jerk each other off with the same needy desperation, trying to cling on to something that's already starting to slip from their grasp no matter how hard they try to hold on.

Chris doesn't stay. He cleans up, pulls on his clothes and Dustin pretends to sleep as he listens to his door close behind Chris. He buries his face in the pillow and forces himself to breathe - _in, out. In, out. In, out_. That night he dreams that the four of them are on a plane and it shudders, smoke billowing from one of the engines as Sean's voice goes out over the speakers and says that the plane is crashing and there's only three parachutes for the passengers and Wardo stays to fall with the plane, betrayed, as he and Mark and Chris jump out to safety.

He doesn't have to have a degree in Psychology to figure out what that means.

* * *

When Wardo storms through the office and slams Mark's laptop to the ground, Dustin remembers the dream and the plane and Wardo being left behind and feels like he's stuck inside a self-fulfilling prophecy and there's no way to escape. He catches up to Wardo outside, sees him shrug off the burly security guards and smooth out his pressed suit like he's drawing his armour around himself. He looks warily at Dustin as Dustin approaches, guarded, and it's hard for Dustin to breathe through the sudden lump in his throat.

"I didn't know," he says, quickly, stammering over the words. "I swear, Wardo, I didn't _know_."

Wardo seems to deflate, proud shoulders slumping and he sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "There's no way for anyone to know."

"Except _Sean_ ," Dustin spits out, hate boiling in him suddenly. He nearly jumps when he feels Wardo's hand on his shoulder, dark eyes looking at him steadily.

"Don't piss him off," Wardo advises, quietly. "He - Mark can't say no to him. Mark trusts him. Don't piss Sean off, Dustin, not while you want to work here."

"I don't know if I do," Dustin says, helplessly, and Wardo sighs.

"I'm not going to be around anymore." _For Mark_ goes unsaid, but Dustin can read it. He's still so angry, he's practically shaking with it, but Wardo's been taking care of Mark for too long for him to just be able to forget and act differently. Mark doesn't deserve it, doesn't deserve Wardo but Dustin feels grateful that Wardo's too good a guy to abandon him. It reminds Dustin that Mark's not actually a total dick. It reminds Dustin that despite everything, Mark is his _friend_. Even if he doesn't like him very much right now, Dustin can't stop caring for Mark, either.

"What are we going to do?" Dustin asks, helplessly and Wardo's lips curve. It's not a smile, not really. It's too humourless for that.

"Hang on," he says, and he squeezes Dustin's shoulder once before he turns and walks away.

* * *

Chris and Dustin have their own apartments. It's been nearly two years since they've slept in each other's beds. After Wardo leaves, they get more and more distant, busy with their own work, their own lives. Dustin watches out for Mark because he feels like he owes it to Wardo, somehow. It doesn't really help because he's _not_ Wardo, and Wardo was always the only person who could make Mark take breaks to sleep, or eat. Dustin tries though, and he worries as he sees Mark bury himself in his work, lips bitten raw and shoulders hunched as he stays wired-in more often than not. It's like with Wardo gone, the only thing Mark _has_ is Facebook, is code. Facebook was worth Mark fucking Wardo over, but looking at Mark Dustin can't help but think that he never expected this. Never expected that Wardo would just be - _gone_.

Mark's kind of a fail human being sometimes, and Dustin wants to shake him. But he thinks that Mark is suffering enough so he brings him red bull and tries to get him to go back at a decent time, staying with him when he inevitably won't.

* * *

He bumps into Chris as they're both leaving the office, and Chris looks startled. He'd been smiling down at something on his phone before he noticed Dustin's approach, and the smile's gone, now. He's dressed nicer than usual, smells of some fancy cologne that's new and nothing Dustin's noticed on him before.

There's a lot of things about Chris that Dustin's never noticed before, now.

"Dustin," Chris says, and it's uncomfortable. Dustin nods to him as they wait in the elevator. Chris's phone beeps and he glances down at it like he's forgotten it's still in his hand. He looks flustered, a little guilty, and the nice clothes and the new cologne suddenly make a whole lot of sense.

"Date?" Dustin asks, as mildly as he can manage. Chris shrugs uncomfortably, trying and failing for neutral.

"I'm meeting my boyfriend for dinner."

 _Boyfriend_. Chris has a boyfriend, and Dustin didn't know. _Dustin didn't know_. It's suddenly really fucking hard to breathe and his nails dig into his palm, sharp pain to bring himself back to the present.

"Oh," he forces out. "I didn't know you're seeing someone."

"Two months now," Chris manages, and Dustin feels like someone just punched him in the gut. He forces himself to breathe normally, and manages to nod.

"Have fun," he says, as the doors open. He can't get to his car fast enough.

* * *

Chris's boyfriend, ironically, is called Sean. Dustin doesn't know how he's missed it before, he's got it up on his Facebook.

 **Chris Hughes is in a relationship with Sean White** stares at him as he clicks on Chris's profile. Dustin abruptly shuts his laptop and goes for the liquor cabinet.

He finishes a bottle of Jack, and texts Wardo in the middle of the night. _Chris has a boyfriend_

 _I'm sorry_ , Wardo sends, not ten minutes later. Dustin laughs and laughs, then he has to run to the bathroom to throw up. He passes out on the cool floor, head spinning with too much alcohol and mouth bitter and sour from more than just vomit.

* * *

It doesn't surprise Dustin to hear that Chris is leaving Facebook. What surprises him is the fact that Chris tells him about it. Dustin's fingers still on his keyboard and blood is rushing, loud, in his ears.

"Good luck," he manages to say, and Chris nods. He shoots Dustin a long look before he turns and leaves, and Dustin yanks on his headphones and loses himself in code for ten hours straight. He doesn't want to think.

* * *

"I think I love him," he slurs drunkenly into his phone. He's got a bottle of tequila this time, half empty on his coffee table surrounded by empty bottles of beer. He can already feel a hangover building between his eyes, but he can't find it in himself to give a damn. Wardo's quiet for so long that Dustin doesn't think he's going to answer, or maybe he hasn't even called Wardo and just imagined it. Thought about it. Fuck, his head's spinning too hard for him to think clearly.

"I know," Wardo says, finally, and okay, so he called after all.

"I never told him."

"Is it easier?" Wardo asks, and there's genuine curiosity there, something broken and Dustin has to close his eyes because _fuck_ , of course. Of course Wardo loved Mark and of course Wardo would tell him. Wardo's not the type of person who can keep it to himself. He's not the kind of coward Dustin is, who can deny it until it's too late.

"No," he admits, breathing hard, trying to ignore the burning of his eyes. "Does it get easier?"

"A little," Wardo admits, and Dustin times his breaths to Wardo's.

"How long?" he asks. He wants to know how long it'll take for everything in him to stop hurting, wants to know when he'll stop feeling like he's about to throw up from everything that's built up and unsaid. Wardo's breath stutters, and Dustin can feel the regret through the phone and too many miles to count.

"Too long."

Dustin laughs, but then a choked sob escapes and he quickly hangs up. He buries his head in his hands and shudders, shaking. Nothing good lasts forever, but Dustin had hoped that it would. Dustin had hoped that for _them_ it would.

He should have known better.


End file.
